


Desert Rain

by taylortot



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Lance (Voltron)-centric, M/M, Post Season 7, keith is so soft tho, pining lance, this is basically word vomit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 19:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15892125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylortot/pseuds/taylortot
Summary: Lance had been a dry, scorched desert, lonely and desolate to the point of pain, and Keith had swept in like a summer thunderstorm. Instant relief. Debilitating relief.::or, some post season 7 healing





	Desert Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. I already wrote a post s7 fic where kl talk out some of their roadblocks BUT i just. could not stop thinking about it, so i wrote another, much longer one lol. I didn't really edit it before posting; i've been working on it for weeks and I'm tired of looking at it. I loved writing it though, even if it is kind of messy and unorganized. I hope you guys enjoy!

The calm after the storm has never been so....calm. It’s weird. Like, Lance knows that the Galra are still out there, or whatever. It feels like there’s always gonna be more Galra to stand up against. He knows that, logically, eventually, they’ll have to run out of enemies, right? Logically. Eventually. It might take a couple thousand years, but they can’t go on forever, and Voltron has to win. That’s their schtick. The one absolute that pushes the team to work as hard as they can.

Anyways, fighting a battle on Earth - for Earth - hadn’t changed the fact that they’d fought dozens of times for the liberation and safety of other planets, too. It had just never felt like this. 

Waking up in a hospital room by the soft yellow glow of the sun -  _ his _ Sun,  _ Earth’s _ Sun - surrounded by his family. The quiet comfort of sitting with his teammates in the aftermath, all of them tucked into Allura’s room, just relishing the joy of their victory silently. There was this overwhelming sense of relief that hung over Lance, so potent that everything seemed softer, like the end of a hazy dream.

In the past, post-battle would have been a blur of many events. A parade, a ceremony of honor, a feast, a dance. The paladins had been expected to remain standing with their chins up, to accept the appreciation, strengthen the coalition, and then move directly onto the next planet. Downtime in the Castle of Lions included training, repairs, and copious amounts of sleep, wherever they could fit it in. 

In the two years they spent in space, they hadn’t had anytime to sit after a battle and just breathe with no mitigated plan of action to follow.

Which is probably why, a week after the final battle on Earth, nearly cleared from the Garrison med wing, Lance sits on his hospital bed and contemplates the stillness. His injuries are almost entirely healed, but he hadn’t left the med wing once since he’d gotten them. None of the paladins had been expected to show up for the memorial service, and even though the media - scraping itself back together already after the Galra’s occupation - has been chomping at the bit for information regarding their antics, no one has disturbed them.

But it’s been a whole week. Lance had thought that he wouldn’t....he thought that, upon returning home, it would be easy as breathing to fall into a routine where he wasn’t constantly in motion. Looking ahead, focusing on what to do next. He’d craved it, ached for the release that comes with no responsibilities. For the chance to just be Lance again, the way he was, before Shiro crashed back to Earth, before the blue lion, and way, way before he had been given the duty as a defender of the universe.

He didn’t realize, back then, that the Lance he wanted to be just didn’t - couldn’t - exist anymore.

And he’s finding, in the stillness, that he doesn’t mind. This Lance has not one, but two families. This Lance has saved thousands of lives and helped to bring peace to galaxies that most people on Earth couldn’t even fathom existing. This Lance had made a difference in the universe, even if it had to be at the expense of his own care-free life, and he wouldn’t change it for the world.

Despite being at peace with himself, his thoughts are too much. There are too many of them. He’s itching to step back into action, because action will eliminate these silent moments and then he won’t have to think anymore. But to be on the move again so soon is such an irritating thing to want, especially knowing that he got that particular itch from  _ Keith _ . Since when did he take after  _ Keith Kogane _ , of all people?

And Lance...well, thinking about Keith is somewhat of a danger area, mostly because he can’t figure the thoughts themselves out. They are shapeless, with no words to describe them. Hard to put a finger on. The only semblance of meaning he can wring from that mess is that there is a vague, Allura-shaped thought too closely attached. A sameness to them. Which, uh,  _ yikes _ . 

Lance sighs and directs his attention away from the muddiness of his head and on his surroundings. The bouquets of flowers his family had brought him are nearly all dried out by now, helping to hide the sterile smell of the room behind them. The wall by the window is plastered in drawings from his niece and nephew, and Lance rises to his feet and walks over, pulling each of them down carefully. He wants to make sure these go with him, wherever he is going next. 

The door to his room opens without warning. “Dude, why aren’t you answering your comm? Are you okay?”

Lance spins around to see Hunk standing there with a half-panicked look on his face, almost breathless like he had been running.

“Holy shit, Hunk,” Lance breathes out, unclenching his fists from around one of the drawings. “Knock next time.”

Hunk’s expression becomes sheepish upon realizing that there is nothing inherently wrong right now. “Sorry, buddy, it’s just. We’ve been trying to page you for like 15 minutes and, you know, when you don’t answer we get….y’know.”

Lance wonders if he’s thinking about the battle. When his comm had died after he and Veronica had been attacked by one of the Galra fighters. He’d heard the team calling for him when he came to, worry coloring all of their voices, asking him to respond. It was the panic in Keith’s voice had forced him to stand up and keep going. Keith, who had  _ demanded _ that he answered.

Ah, nope. Lance can’t go there right now.

He gives Hunk a smile and places the picture down on top of the stack of them that he had made. “My bad. I didn’t mean to worry you guys. What’s up?”

Hunk now looks entirely at ease, opening the door wider and beckoning Lance to follow him. “Well, as you know, we are all finally getting discharged tomorrow, and like, I get that the Garrison is kind of our home now since the Galra have pretty much destroyed everything, so we’ll probably still have plenty of time to hang out but, me and Pidge thought it would be a good idea to spend our last night in the med bay together. Like, all of us.”

Lance grins. “Sweet. I’m game.” Hunk beams at him and turns to lead Lance to the other side of the med bay where Allura’s room is located. The smile falls from Lance’s face as soon as he’s sure Hunk won’t see, and tries not to let the unpleasant knot, hard at the pit of his stomach, get the better of him.

::

It turns out being as uncomfortable as Lance had expected, which is also, somehow, a totally unexpected thing for him. He walks into Allura’s room and, while his entrance had been quiet and largely ignored by most of the people already there, two pairs of eyes are drawn to him immediately.

At one point, Lance would have done anything to have been the first one Allura looked for. When Keith left the team, it had felt like Allura was his only friend most days, and that fact alone was hard to swallow. She had other things to attend to that were more important than Lance - being the voice of the Voltron Coalition will require a clear list of priorities, and Lance fell steadily at the bottom, he was sure of it.

Despite that, his admiration for her had blossomed into something that he thought was wonderful, that could make them wonderful together. He hadn’t anticipated Lotor.

And Lance tries not to think about that. He certainly doesn’t blame her or hold her against anything that had happened while Lotor had been deceiving them. It was Lance’s fault, for fostering a crush on her. He’d steadily been building walls against his teammates, and he found that while he trusted them with his life, he could not trust them with his feelings or his thoughts. But he had allowed himself to want her - to let her and the entire possibility of her, bleed into him - and the moment that he realized she would never look at him that way?

The loneliness had made him feel prickly. He didn’t know how to deal with himself after that, trying desperately to work through those feelings and firmly forget them. Rejection, though while not spoken, was obvious and it had never stung like that before. He wanted to be a friend to Allura, he wanted to still be there for her as best as he could, and Lance knew that he could never be that person if he still wanted her. 

So he let himself become distant. It was easier. 

And then.

And then.

Keith came back. 

_ Keith  _ came  _ back  _ and despite the fact that they were thrown headlong into motion, despite the fact that Lance hadn’t even gotten to take a second just to talk to Keith, he could suddenly breathe again. The air was lighter, his throat no longer ached with unshed tears, and the sickening flop of his stomach all but disappeared.

He found his place among the team once more. The hollow void in his chest was filled entirely with purpose, with drive. It was a suckerpunch in the same way that it was a gentle helping hand. He didn’t know had badly he missed Keith until Keith was there in his red paladin armor for the first time since he left, looking for all the world like the leader he had tried so desperately to be, once upon a time.

Like, yeah, Lance had admitted to missing Keith when he was brushed off by the others in the castle. When it was late at night and he found himself at the training deck with his Altean broadsword in hand. When he was on the stardeck, recounting all the places he’d been and the people he saved, committing every detail to memory just as firmly as who had been there at his back. When he climbed into Red in the middle of the day, just because that pilot’s chair and that dashboard had once belonged to...

Okay, so maybe Lance had missed Keith  _ a lot _ . That was the whole point, wasn’t it? He just didn’t realize how much or how deeply until he saw Keith again. Which was life-altering. It felt as though understanding the depth of his epiphany had brought a whole slew of thoughts and feelings to the surface that he wasn’t prepared to deal with. 

Whether he was ready, though, didn’t matter. Lance had been a dry, scorched desert, lonely and desolate to the point of pain, and Keith had swept in like a summer thunderstorm. Instant relief.  _ Debilitating _ relief. 

He stepped up when Keith asked him to on the journey home. It felt as seamless and easy as breathing, to be Keith’s right hand man, to lead alongside him, and it never failed to hit him just how good of a team they made together. The exhilaration of their impressive, and sometimes wordless, communication. Even after all their time apart, the way they could carry out a mission together was smoother than ever. 

He’d been worried for a moment, when they were trapped on that Galra ship by Lotor’s previous generals, that Keith would leave and Lance would never see him again. The fear of it nearly choked him, but Keith had a fire in his eyes, and the firm “I’ll meet up with you guys soon” was a promise that Lance clung to until he and Acxa were swallowed up safely by the black lion. 

In the weeks that followed, Keith had felt like a friend again, almost. They were on the same wavelength, at least, and it was good enough for Lance. Many times, he’d been tempted to open a private link between Red and Black, but there was almost always company and Lance didn’t know what he would say, anyway. This Keith was different than before. He had lost some of his familiarity in those 2 long years he spent on the back of a space whale, but it wasn’t bad. It was just...different. Lance wanted to get to know him again, this time without forcing a stupid rivalry onto him.

So, it went like that. Keith had filled Lance’s thoughts, had single-handedly consumed all of Lance’s insecurities and fears just by existing in the same space as him. Lance felt stronger than before, strong enough to keep his head when they finally returned to Earth just to see that it had been taken over by the Galra. Strong enough to complete his missions with focus. All because of  _ Keith _ . And the scariest part to Lance was that he really couldn’t imagine it any other way. 

Of course it was Keith. Of course it was.

And then, suddenly, before the battle last week, Allura was there, calling his name. He turned around expecting to at least see Coran or Romelle in tow but, no. Just Allura. An echo of everything he had felt for her pulsed through him as his sister’s presence fell to the back of his mind. She had never come to him so shyly, he wasn’t sure what to think.

Allura wished him luck.

Allura  _ blushed _ at him.

He reeled, his heart stopped. What in  _ the fuck  _ was that supposed to mean? It just took that split moment - her timid demeanor, her earnestness, the sparkle of sincerity and interest in her eye - to bring his entire world to a halt. Where he thought he had things figured out, finally, there was chaos again. He couldn’t think in a straight line, couldn’t focus on the mission without wondering what the hell had just happened.

There was the Galra fighter, who upended him and Veronica.

There was Keith’s voice, raw with emotion, yanking him into consciousness.

Lance almost died. Veronica almost died.

And then, there was Red, who saved his life, the way that she has saved Keith’s.

The battle was long, and not without sacrifices. There were too many close calls amid the betrayals and the rain of heavy fire and the endless deluge of enemies. The one constant thing Lance even remembers from that day, is Keith’s panic. The way he had called his name. Not once, or even twice, but  _ three times _ . Keith had never sounded like that before. Not like  _ that _ . 

So. That leads him to where Lance is now: standing in the doorway, the rush of  _ everything _ making his stomach feel queasy. Eventually, he’ll have to talk to them, preferably in separate conversations. But since he has no clue what to say, or how to say it, he avoids eye contact with both of them, and slinks towards where Coran is watching Pidge and Matt geeking out over some new game.

::

Shiro shows up to the party last, having had other duties to attend to. He’s been so busy these days that they hardly ever seen him. Guess being given entire control over Earth’s first deep-space ready, half-alien battleship will propel someone to the forefront of all things important. It probably helps that he, a pilot previously declared dead like 4 or 5 years ago, was a key player in eliminating the Galra occupancy. He’d been a hero before - now, he is something closer to a god.

Lance breathes out a sigh of relief at Shiro’s presence. Partly, because it’s nice to see him, to feel him as someone who is still part of the team again. Things are changing so fast, and Lance is happy to realize that the bonds forged while they’d all be locked in battle for years before coming home are still there. Stronger than ever.

But mostly it’s because while Allura has been distracted by Romelle for the past hour, Keith has been caught staring shamelessly at Lance. Like, shameless enough that it’s been commented on twice, loudly, by two different people, and he hardly seems phased by it. He’s been sitting on the same bed with Kosmo half-draped over his lap, quiet and watchful and just. Staring, with a puckered brow, like he’s trying to figure something out.

Hopefully, Shiro can draw his attention away so that Lance won’t have to sit here in the corner swallowing his own damn heartbeat every time it pulses in his throat.

::

Lance slips out of the room after midnight, everyone either too caught up in the movie or sleeping to notice, and creeps down the hall to Veronica’s room. He finds her laying in bed in the dark, fiddling with her phone, which she angles away from her face at the sound of her door being thrown open.

“Hello?” she asks, squinting at the darkness. “Who’s there?”

“Just me,” Lance replies, shutting the door behind him.

Immediately, she relaxes back into her pillow. “Oh, hey, Lance. What are you still doing up? Weren’t you guys having a party or something?”

He shrugs and goes to sit on the edge of her bed, right next to her hip. She rolls over and flips the switch on the bedside lamp, which casts the whole room in a warm shadow. Her expression is full of questions and curiosity, but thankfully, she reigns it in. “Are you okay?” she settles for asking.

Lance sighs, and even though the stillness in the post-battle victory has allowed confusion and anxiety to sweep in, he can still appreciate what it truly means to be able to confide in his sister again. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind. I dunno.”

Veronica sits up in bed now, reaching for her glasses and perching them on her nose. “Ooh, is this about the princess?”

Lance licks his lips slowly and then nods, only meeting her eager gaze for a second before looking away. “Yes.”

She grins and leans in toward him conspiratorially. “I knew you liked her!”

He pauses, seeing himself inside of his own head, staring at the mass of jumbled thoughts and feelings he’s been neglecting. “Yes...and no,” he says. It feels monumental to say it out loud. A year of his life had been about Allura. He didn’t think getting over her would come to him so easily; he’d been so, so sure, that his feelings for her were immovable. 

Veronica tilts her head in confusion. “Okay, you lost me. You guys were vibing hard before we fought Sendak. She came to say goodbye and you liked it.”

He sort of half-grins, feeling a blush creeping up his neck, surprised by how much tension leaves him with every passing second. “I mean, I did, don’t get me wrong. I’d been hoping for something like that for forever. She surprised me.”

She adjusts her glasses. “I’m sensing a ‘but’ in here?”

He licks his lips again, hears Keith’s voice in his head. “I think...I think there’s someone else.”

Her eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Really? Who?”

The name gets caught in his throat stubbornly, but Lance is determined to say it. Talking it out with his sister is imperative. This is the one thing that old Lance did before the fate of the universe was dropped on his shoulders, and its the one thing that the new Lance - presented with the opportunity - absolutely will not pass up. 

“Keith,” he says quietly, and then again, with more assurance. “It’s Keith.”

Her face goes carefully blank, but he can tell she hadn’t expected him to say  _ Keith _ of all the damn people in the world. “For real?”

Lance takes a deep breath, his heart feeling lighter for saying it aloud. “Yeah. Yes.” It’s Keith, he thinks, over and over, each time easier to admit than the last. It’s Keith.  _ It’s Keith _ .

She crosses her arms over her chest and leans back against the wall. “Wow. How long?”

“I...I don’t know.”

“ _ Wow _ .”

“Shut up, okay! I’ve had a lot on my plate!”

“Okay, Mr. Defender of the Universe.  _ Why _ Keith?” she asks, looking eager again. Her taste for curiosity is really a scary thing. She could wring the secrets of life out of a dry hand towel if she put her mind to it.

Lance feels himself blush full on now, thrown off by the unexpected question. He can hear his heart pounding in his ears, feel as each breath leaves his chest. Each word feels like they weight 5 lbs. on his tongue. “Why not Keith?”

“I'm not judging,” she says. “I'm just surprised. He doesn't seem like your type.”

Keith is the literal epitome of his type. “He’s just...he makes me a better person,” Lance says in a rush. “Like, I always saw him as someone I had to prove myself to, like maybe he was the bar I had to pass, but…” he swallows as warmth yawns in his chest. “But we make the best team.” At least, Lance thinks so. 

Veronica blinks once. Twice. “Wow, Lance.”

“Yeah.” He runs his thumb over a little white scar on his arm absently. “Allura is the most amazing girl I've ever met. I can’t imagine the kind of strength it would take to move on from the death of your whole race to lead a rebellion against the Galra with 5 clueless humans, but she did it. 

“I’d realized my feelings for her pretty quickly, but I never got the chance to act on them. Well, I tried at first, but she thought I was just joking around, and by the time I  _ really _ started liking her I didn’t want her to, I don’t know, not think I wasn’t serious, I guess? By then, though, she already fell for someone else. So, I moved on.”

He pauses when Veronica’s hand slides into view, covering his hand with hers. He slowly looks up to see her smiling gently. “That’s a good thing. Moving on...it’s good.”

He huffs with frustration. “Yeah, except, I feel like...like she knows that I like her. Or that I did. And what if she likes me back? She’s a big part of my life now. I don’t want to make things weird, or hurt her feelings.” Maybe he’s getting ahead of himself, but he hadn’t read the room wrong, right? He groans out loudly and flings himself onto his back, right across Veronica’s lap. “This  _ sucks _ .”

“You must be close enough to her that she’ll understand,” she says, pinching his cheek lightly. The shadows cover her face, but he can hear the smile in her voice. “Besides, if you’re going to confess to -”

“Whoa, whoa whoa, nuh-uh! Who said anything about a confession?” Lance cut her off, his heart thundering at the thought.

“Uhh...Lance? That’s what you do when you like someone? So you can, you know, get together?”

He shakes his head vehemently as he can where it lies against the bed. “No way in hell can I confess to him. He’s our team leader, and he’s - he’s…” There mere idea of putting himself out there terrifies him more than practically any other situation he’s ever been in, and that’s saying a lot after looking back on the last few months of his life. He absolutely cannot lose Keith. Not again. He’d rather stew on his own feelings for years - for decades,  _ forever _ \- before losing what he has with Keith. He doesn’t know Keith the way he used to, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that Lance is the best version of himself when Keith is around.

Veronica pats his cheek. “Do what you want to do, bro. Didn’t mean to put you on the spot.”

Lance relaxes. “Yeah. It’s fine. Thanks for listening. I know my love life is probably the last thing you wanted to hear about today, but I don’t know who else to talk to about it.” Pidge would never let him live it down, and Hunk can’t keep a secret to save his life. Besides, there’s a rift between him and his two old Garrison buddies, and admitting feelings for their collective team leader, while not intending to act on them, seems like an idiot move. A ticking time bomb.

And maybe. Maybe he remembers how they had made fun of him when they knew he liked Allura. And maybe? He doesn’t know how to be close to them again. 

He’s so glad that his sister is here, in the flesh. Oh God, how he’d missed her.

“Not true! I love talking with you about anything, Lance.” She pokes his nose. “I love  _ you _ and I missed you and I wouldn’t have it any other way.” 

He sits up again and leans in for a hug, which she returns happily. He holds on a little longer than necessary and finds himself relieved, again, when she kisses his cheek and he remembers that this is real.

“I should probably go back before they notice I’m missing. Love you.” He stands and makes his way to the door. “Thanks again.”

“Love you, too! See you tomorrow.”

He waves at her as he leaves, shutting the door softly behind him. Lance creeps back down the hallway towards Allura’s room, but once he finds himself outside of it, he can’t bring himself to go back inside. His stomach is in knots just thinking about it, so instead, he slips through the halls back to his wing of the med center and crawls back into his hospital bed. 

Talking to Veronica helped to alleviate the messiness of his thoughts. Within minutes, Lance has fallen into a deep, dreamless slumber. 

::

The next day is a whirlwind of early morning action, which Lance welcomes with wide open arms. He is discharged from the med center and released to move back into his assigned room in the barracks near his family. Once settled in, he and Veronica make their way to the mess hall. After shuffling through the breakfast line, she mentions that she has a few things to discuss with the MFE pilots and that she’d swing back around afterwards.

Hunk and Pidge are unfortunately nowhere to be found, but Lance is too hungry to care when he ends up eating breakfast alone in the corner of the room. To distract himself, opens the messages on his comm tablet, and shuffles through the missed texts from Hunk last night, before moving onto a new notification.

There’s an email from Shiro, sent to all of Team Voltron regarding their new assignments in helping to restore the Garrison to full-working power. Lance shovels in a bite of oatmeal - not quite his breakfast of choice but anything beats the Altean food goo - and clicks on the email, eyes skimming the assignments lazily until -

He coughs when he inhales sharply in surprise, sputtering around the oatmeal unpleasantly. It takes a few moments and nearly his entire glass of water, but eventually he’s breathing normally. Except the whole world seems to have been tilted and he’s a little dizzy and he can’t tell if its a good dizzy or a bad, bad, _ bad _ dizzy.

He’s been paired to work with Keith. 

Lance should have seen it coming, because Shiro has the Atlas and that means he needs Coran and Allura. They’re the only ones who can help with the weird Altean-magic-tech integrated into the ship, after all.

Easy. Makes sense. 

Hunk and Pidge would be needed to help with ship repairs and broken tech from the attack. They’re geniuses who have spent the last several years studying alien technology; helping with Atlas and Lion repairs would be a piece of cake for them.

Obviously.

Keith, however, is more suited for battle than what comes after, and Lance is dismayed to realize that he’s become much of the same.

So, really, it’s perfectly sensible that they’d be assigned to outdoor work and reconstruction together. And that would be cool, maybe even exciting, because Lance does want to spend time with Keith. He has a lot of questions for him, but he suspects that Keith does too and that’s sort of the problem here. 

After all, the guy couldn’t stop staring at him last night. Didn’t even care that other people noticed. Lance is...Lance doesn’t know what that means.

He glances up from his comm tablet and immediately his gaze hooks on Allura who offers him a wide smile and a little wave as she follows Shiro, who is deep in conversation with Sam Holt, across the floor with empty breakfast trays. Lance waves back and then startles nearly out of his skin as a tray is dropped onto the tabletop across from him.

He jolts, his mouth suddenly feeling very dry, because it’s Keith who is taking a seat.

“Hi,” Keith says plainly.

“Dude, did you have to sneak up on me like that?” Lance complains, trying to calm his heart. At least he doesn’t have a mouthful of oatmeal to choke on again. “What the hell?”

Keith levels him with an even stare. “I wasn’t sneaking. It’s not my fault you’re unobservant.” He looks down at his tray as he picks up his spoon and begins to eat. His hair brushes over the slope of his cheek delicately, and he settles onto one elbow as he pokes around at his food. After a moment, he glances up at Lance warily. “Is something wrong?”

The heat rushes into Lance’s face and he hopes against all hopes that it’s not noticeable. “Just spacing out. Sorry.”

Keith shrugs, but Lance can’t tell if he took the lie at face value or not. “It’s okay.” 

There’s a weird sort of tension in the air. Keith seems to hang on it and Lance does his best to ignore it, knowing that he would just stick his foot in his mouth anyway. Probably. He really doesn’t want to find out.

But Keith sighs, breaking the quiet between them. “Lance, are you okay?”

Lance pauses, a spoonful of food halfway to his mouth, and raises an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

Keith’s eyebrows furrow and pucker. “You’ve been distant. It’s not like you.”

Lance sets his spoon down. “Is it? What do you really know about me these days, Keith?” His voice comes out sharper than he had intended and it shocks both of them into silence.

He doesn’t want to hold Keith’s absence against him. He hadn’t known how vehemently he held it in his own heart. Lance’s stomach sinks as a flicker of uncatchable emotion flits across Keith’s face and then disappears. He’s brought back to the dark and terrifying expanse of space, the tension that had snapped the team in half like a whip, and the way Keith had looked at him when Lance had accused him of running away. 

Instead of picking a fight as Lance half-expects, Keith looks away. “That’s fair,” he murmurs, and then slowly returns to eating.

That’s the last time Keith attempts conversation over breakfast, and Lance is too busy kicking himself to swallow his pride and try again, even when he realizes that Keith could have sat anywhere else in the mess hall, and he chose to sit with Lance.

_ Wow. _

Great, so...being friends with Keith again is going to be much harder than anticipated, apparently. 

One, because Lance can’t hold a conversation without saying something stupid.

And two? Because his heart is beating so loud he can’t even hear himself think.

::

Their first assignment has them scouring the wreckage of a fallen Galra cruiser on Garrison property for tech that could be studied. Krolia is there, as well as Kolivan, which Lance supposes is super helpful considering that they’re actually familiar with a lot of the stuff they’re looking for. They’re literally Galra - they couldn’t ask for any two people more suited for this job. 

They split the group of human volunteers (mostly Garrison scientists) into two separate groups: one lead by Krolia and one lead by Kolivan. Lance is disappointed but not surprised when he and Keith end up on different teams, but seeing as how the general human population isn’t all that thrilled with the Galra right now, it’s the best option. While neither of them have extensive knowledge of Galra tech, they are able to act as sort of a middleman between the two Blade members and the humans following their instruction. 

And okay, even though Lance has sorta spent time with Krolia through team bonding exercises in space or whatever, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s nervous as hell to be around her. Like, she’s Keith’s _ mom _ . He has the inkling that she maybe didn’t get the best impression of him while they were making their way to Earth and that kinda kills him a little on the inside. 

Family is extremely important to Lance. He holds the concept and actuality of family up on a pedestal, untouchable by pretty much any other notion in the entire universe. Like, being friends with someone pretty much entails getting along with their family, right? That’s what Lance believes, at least.

Keith only has two people in his family, and even though Lance knows that Shiro likes him, he really,  _ really _ wants Krolia to like him, too. 

For the next few days, Lance acts as Krolia’s right hand. He busies himself with aiding the scientists in collecting data, helping to dismember droids for easier transportation back to the research center, and explaining the general idea of each discarded Galra weapon they come across. He goes to bed every night surprised by how much he actually knows, by how many things on this ship are familiar to him.

Krolia isn’t very forthcoming and she’s very much all business, but he notices a lot of her bluntness and mannerisms are reflected directly back into her son. Despite being a Blade and also some part Galra, she is also a lot more understanding than he expected. 

And, he notes on the third day as she contacts her son via comm link with a question, she loves Keith fiercely. That makes her just about the best person in the whole damn world as far as Lance is concerned. He is so glad that Keith found her. He’s so glad that she must have left him out of love rather than the desire to simply leave. He’s just...so glad.

Unfortunately, besides in-passing while on assignment, he only sees Keith at mealtimes, and during evening debriefing sessions with the Garrison higher-ups, but it doesn’t leave much room for conversation. When they do talk, it’s cordial. Very reminiscent of every interaction they’ve had in the past, like, year. That strange tension between them lingers, like they both want to say things that just can’t be said. 

The rest of Team Voltron is hard to come by, too, and Lance comforts himself by spending what little free time he has with his family. It fills his heart with warmth to be surrounded by people when he knows where he stands with them and he wonders how hard it’s going to be when he has to leave again.

::

They get back late on the last day of their current assignment, damp with sweat and heavy with exhaustion. Most of the lights inside the compound have been dimmed, and the hangar is full with all of the ground vehicles that go out during the day, which means they’re the last ones in.

Their group disperses pretty quickly, but Lance finds himself lingering at the back of the pack, waiting for Keith to emerge from the vehicle he had been piled into. With no pressing responsibilities to get to straight away, Lance is determined to take this opportunity to talk to Keith in an actual conversation for the first time in forever.

When Keith and Krolia spill out of the same vehicle, Lance has half a mind to slip away before he’s noticed. He may have spent all week with her, but he didn’t really want to come between her and Keith. Awkward, right? He has no place there. 

But somehow, Keith spots him. Despite the distance between them, the look on his face is magnetic, and Lance can feel a blush creeping up his neck when he doesn’t turn immediately away.

Keith says something to his mom, and then he’s waving in Lance’s direction, walking across the space between them. With every step closer, Lance’s heart beats faster and louder.  _ Christ _ , he thinks to himself.  _ Get a grip. It’s just Keith _ .

“Hey,” Keith greets, slowing to a walk. “Did you need something?” His voice is a little rough with what is probably disuse but the sound of it resonates in Lance’s chest and suddenly, his tongue is like sand in his mouth.

“Huh?” he says stupidly, openly staring at Keith. The moonlight slants in through the wide mouth of the open hangar, silvering Keith’s dark hair and highlighting the smooth ridge of his scar. Even with (and honestly, including) the mullet, Keith has always been attractive - like, it is just a plain fact of life. Water is wet, the sun is hot, Keith is attractive. It has just never taken Lance’s breath away like this before.

“Were you...were you not waiting for me?” Keith’s voice is unexpectedly unsure. 

Lance clears his throat. “Oh, you?” 

Keith raises an eyebrow. “What?”

Why is this so hard? They see each other every day;  _ this shouldn’t be so hard _ . “Waiting,” Lance says clumsily, taking in the way Keith’s hair is still slightly plastered to his forehead with sweat, the way the moonlight lays lovingly on the slope of his eyebrow. “Yes.”

“I really have no idea what you’re trying to say.”

Lance reaches up and drags a hand down his face, turning his gaze away. That helps, marginally. “Sorry. Long day.” Finally. Three words that make actual sense. Embarrassing, but still a win.

“Yeah,” Keith agrees. “It was.” 

That tension is back, but Lance doesn’t want to keep running from it every time it creeps into their interactions. “Tired?” Lance tries, knowing that there are only so many single word/double word sentences he can form before things get awkward really quick.

“Yeah, I guess so…?” Keith trails off. “You’re acting really weird, you know.”

Lance chooses to ignore that, but uses the comment to try and be more normal. “I just…” he takes a deep breath and meets Keith’s confused gaze head on. “I just want to talk to you. You know, like...like we used to? And for some reason I’m having a really hard time articulating that. Sorry.”

Keith cracks a smile at that. “You mean, you want to argue with me?”

Lance shakes his head a little too forcefully, and the hangar doors begin to shut with a low, metallic moan. “No, no. Not like that. I don’t want to argue with you, Keith, what is wrong with you? _ Talk _ . You know, like, as friends?”

Keith’s smile disappears as his face turns into something guarded. The expression totally throws Lance for a whole damn rollercoaster. 5 loops, 2 corkscrews, initial launch at 60 miles per hour. What the hell.

“What brought this on?” Keith asks, folding his arms over his chest, eyebrows drawing in deeply. Lance is somewhat relieved to see the stance because he knows exactly what it means, and is proof that Keith maybe isn’t as different as he seems.

“What kind of stupid question is that?” Lance asks, unable to mask his confusion. “You and me, we’re a team. Of course I want to be your friend.”

Keith studies him quietly for a moment. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Lance, but you’re giving me mixed signals.”

Lance makes a frustrated noise that sounds like more of a squawk than anything else. “What? What the hell do you mean, ‘mixed signals’? I’ve been totally honest with you since the day we met!” Sort of a lie, but he’s been honest in all the ways that really matter and doesn’t that count for something?

“Ever since I became the black paladin, back when Shiro first disappeared, you’ve always been very clear about where we stood,” Keith says with a surprising amount of control and grace, though there may be the heat of his own underlying confusion in there somewhere. 

Lance feels his pulse spike at that, but he still doesn’t understand what Keith is talking about. “Uh, yeah man, of course. You…” This is getting dangerously close to the unopened can of worms that is his feelings. “You are our leader, you know? I trust you.” 

Keith’s eyebrows furrow even closer together. “You trust me because I’m the leader.”

Lance stares. “What? No. I mean, sorta, but no. You’re my leader, because I trust you. Duh. That’s why I’m your right hand, mullet.” Keith seems to go rigid at those words and after a quick cursory glance through his memory, Lance decides that he didn’t say anything overly mushy. His suddenly sprinting heart slows back down to a brisk jog. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Keith licks his lips, his expression slowly softening. “You....you thought of us as friends? Even then?”

Lance feels his eyebrows slant in confusion again. “Dude.  _ Duh _ .” In those few short months, Keith had even been his best friend. He hadn’t felt comfortable like that around anyone else. He’d been able to come to Keith with his insecurities and Keith had comforted him. Made him feel like he belonged.“What did you think we were?”

“ _ Really _ ?”

“Oh my god, Keith,  _ yes _ .”

Keith uncrosses his arms to instead place his hands on his hips. “I thought, all this time, you just wanted us to have a professional relationship.”

Lance almost chokes on his own tongue when he inhales a gasp of surprise. “ _ A what?! _ ” Why did this sound suspiciously like a cheesy miscommunication trope from some lame romcom? This whole conversation came straight out of a movie.

Keith shrugs one shoulder, unperturbed by Lance’s dramatics. “Yeah. You stopped teasing me and challenging me to your stupid games. Started referring to me as the leader every chance you got; like, I literally could not sit in a room with you without you calling me ‘team leader’ at least once. What else was I supposed to think?”

Lance groans and covers his face with both hands. Is he being serious? “Keith, oh my god, I was trying to be  _ supportive _ and  _ respectful _ !” He yanks his hands away. “Wait! So all this time...you didn’t even think of me as your friend? Are you kidding me?” A blush begins to work its way back up his neck and he’s grateful, suddenly, that the lighting is so poor in here.

“I didn’t say that,” Keith says, in a voice that almost sounds small, still a little rough around the edges. “I just...I wanted to respect your boundaries.”

His heart turns over at that. He can’t help it; it’s probably the cutest thing anyone has ever said to him and it came out of Keith Kogane’s mouth. Unreal. “You’re an idiot,” Lance says, clicking his tongue.

Keith bristles, and it’s the first spike of his old temper that Lance has seen in a long while. “I’m not good with people, Lance. I don’t know where I’m wanted, and I don’t like to push, okay?”

That is...surprisingly honest. “ _ Well _ ,” Lance drawls low and slow, ignoring the twist of guilt in his stomach, “I  _ want _ to be your friend, Kogane. Think you can handle that?”

At that moment, Krolia approaches. She places her hand on Keith’s shoulder in a way that’s distinctly motherly. Lance thins his mouth into a line, wondering if she heard his botched attempt at communicating with Keith. He’d totally forgotten she was still around. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Keith,” she says.

Keith smiles at her. “Yeah. Good night, Mom.”

She turns her smile to Lance. “You did a good job this week. Thank you for your help.”

Lance’s mouth drops open in a surprised ‘o’ before he remembers he ought to respond. “Y-Yeah? Yeah! Alright! No problem. Anytime, anytime.” He gives her two thumbs up and a winning smile, reigning in his enthusiasm before he is tempted to break into a victory dance.

Her smile might perceptibly widen before she looks back at Keith, pats his shoulder once, and then moves past them and leaves the hangar via the wide, empty hallway.

“Holy shit, dude,” Lance whispers once she’s gone. “Did your mom just  _ compliment _ me?”

The lights in the hallway flicker brighter now that the hangar is fully closed, illuminating more of Keith’s face than before. He’s giving Lance a look he can’t quite decipher. “Didn’t know that meant so much to you,” he says.

“ _ Of course it does _ ,” Lance says with heavy, and genuine exaggeration. There’s no way he’ll admit to Keith that he’s been trying his damnedest to impress her all week. “She’s your mom and she’s like, Galra and also kind of a badass. Who wouldn’t want a compliment from her? Hello?”

Keith laughs. Oh my god, he laughs and it’s been forever since Lance has heard it and it’s such an unbelievably satisfying sound. “I’ll pass that along.”

“ _ Keith _ ,” Lance gasps, mortified, “do  _ not _ .”

Keith grins. Lance is weightless, suddenly, like he could do anything that he put his mind to in that very second. The atmosphere between them is soft, despite the harsh lighting, the cold edges of the metal room. His heart flutters. 

He holds his hand out towards Keith, feeling strangely vulnerable. “Friends?”

Keith takes it, shaking it once, still lit up like a Christmas tree. “Friends.”

“Cool.” Lance, helpless, smiles like an idiot. “Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.”

And it is. Really, very cool. 

::

Lance doesn’t get much sleep, despite being exhausted to the bone from working so hard all day. 

Instead of being frustrated or upset with Keith for misinterpreting Lance’s affection after all this time, Lance finds himself even more endeared to the black paladin. Lance had thought support and respect would have been an obvious indicator, but Keith didn’t even want to lead at first. Of course he didn’t understand that Lance was trying to open up; Keith got what Lance wanted, and vice versa. They’d been on two, totally different pages. It makes him wonder how many other misunderstandings lie between them. 

And then with that, lying in bed, Lance can suddenly make sense of everything. Keith’s strict professionalism, his distance, and sometimes even the downright chill in his words over the past several months have been a direct product of their miscommunication. Lance feels like an idiot for not realizing it sooner. Keith is partially to blame, too, but the guy has buried himself behind so many walls over the years and Lance knows that. He’s always known that.

He sighs and stares up at the ceiling of his dorm, listening to the sound of Veronica’s deep, even breathing on the other side of the room. He takes comfort in the idea that while Keith hadn’t known that Lance saw him as a friend, Keith still considered Lance as such. 

The weight of that realization sinks into him.  _ Keith still considered him his friend. _ Behind those walls and in the space of all that distance, he saw Lance as a friend. Even after he left for the Blade of Marmora, even after 2 long years in a time vacuum, even after returning to the team and helping them return to Earth. He thought Lance didn’t want to be, but Keith still…

Ah, damn.

That does shit to Lance’s heart.

::

He has to talk to Allura. 

He can’t avoid it anymore.

Whatever is going on between them - whatever that  _ thing _ was on the day of the last battle - whatever she may or may not think about his feelings, or whether or not she might be responding to a crush he let go of a long time ago, he has to talk to her. ASAP.

She is nowhere to be found in the mess hall the next morning, which is sort of a relief. Hey, just because he needs to talk to her, doesn’t mean he’s particularly looking forward to it. It’s going to be awkward, and hard. He...he liked her, for a long time. A long ass time. But she deserves someone who can give her what Keith has given to him. He desperately wants that for her, and he isn’t the guy to provide.

And even if she doesn’t like him back, they need to clear the air to move forward. Hopefully then he won’t feel so wound up at the thought of seeing her in passing, let alone having a whole conversation with her.

He...he almost feels guilty, in a way.

He likes Keith and...and it’s not like he’s in a relationship with Keith; he is pretty sure that’s the last thing the team needs, and its probably the last thing Keith would want. Lance is content to stay close to Keith’s side as a friend and as his right hand. Feelings can fade with time anyways, right? It’s enough.

There is no code of honor that is pressing him to discuss feelings with Allura but, like, Lance just wants to do the right thing. By her, and by himself. They both deserve it.

Since he doesn’t see Allura at breakfast, he manages to find Pidge and Hunk. Shay is there, too, and it feels like its been months instead of a week since Lance has seen any of them. They carry most of the conversation as they talk about what they’ve been doing with their assignments, but half of the words are so scientific that Lance is having a hard time engaging.

While they’re saying something particularly hard to understand, he remembers that he didn’t even look to see what his new assignment would be. There’s another email from Shiro on his tablet, and Lance breathes a sigh of relief upon reading it.

He’s still paired with Keith, but this time, they’ll be using their lions to pick up and discard debris in a landfill. Starting with the empty cruiser they’d just spent the last several days dismembering. Easy enough.

He looks up and breaks into the conversation. “Hey, our lions are back up and running?”

Pidge shrugs, adjusts her glasses. “More or less. We won’t be doing any battle crazy shit in them any time soon, so it should be fine.”

Hunk nods. “Yeah, there are still some things we wanna experiment with, but overall, they’re good to fly. Just in time, too. Shiro mentioned yesterday that he thought they could help in the reconstruction process.”

Lance grins. “Hell yeah, he did, and you know how I know that?”

“I have a feeling you’re going to tell us,” Pidge deadpans.

“Me and Red are about to have the most beautiful reunion known to paladin-kind.” He sighs happily. “Shiro’s got me and Keith on clean-up duty this week.” A feeling of calm rushes over him at the prospect of being in Red’s cockpit again; he hadn’t realized ‘til now how much he missed flying. Even flying around in stasis with menial work to do sounds thrilling.

Not that picking around on a Galra cruiser wasn’t entertaining, or anything, but it did put him on edge. In most of his experience, being on a Galra ship was stressful, and half of his dreams last week featured endless purple corridors that he just could not escape from.

“Have fun picking up garbage, I guess,” Pidge replies, turning back to the tablet in her hand and taking a bite out of her toast. Lance would have frowned, but his response is cut off when Keith is suddenly standing there on the other side of the table meeting his gaze. His heart leaps into his throat like the dumbass it is and Lance has to swallow it back down.

“We will,” Keith says mildly, looking to Pidge, who glances up at him with a mixture of surprise and disinterest.

“Oh, hey Keith.”

“Hey.” He plops down onto the bench across from Lance. “Hey, Hunk. Shay.”

After their greetings, Keith turns his eyes on Lance. “Morning.”

Lance forces his tongue to work better now than it did last night. “Yo.” Ugh, yo? Really? God, he can’t make this awkward after all the progress last night.

Keith seems amused at least. His lips twitch. “Get any sleep?”

“Not much. You?” Lance takes a massive bite out of his toast. 

“No. I had a lot on my mind.” Keith says it in such a completely blas é way, as if those words are just small talk, not meant to hold weight, but it throws Lance’s mental footing off just the same. Keith never shares information about himself unless he thinks it’s necessary so like? What is that supposed to mean?

“Sounds like a pretty easy week at least,” Lance says, recovering. “Chillin’ in the lions, catchin’ up on the last....what, how many years has it been for you? Like three? Three years? Maybe four? This time-space thing is  _ so _ fucked up, dude.”

Keith nods, swallowing the food in his mouth. “Something like that.” He pauses, and his tone changes, but Lance can’t identify it. “We’ll see.”

Lance wrinkles his nose. “Excuse me, we haven’t had a chance to talk about anything that wasn’t related to saving the universe in 4 years, I think I’m entitled to a little Blade gossip or  _ something _ .”

Amusement crinkles around the corner of Keith’s violet eyes under the slant of his thick eyebrows, and then a smile breaks across his face like a damn sunrise. “We’ll see,” he repeats. He looks up at Lance through the fringe of his hair before slowly turning his attention to the others at the table.

::

Finding Allura is like trying to catch a fish with bare hands. Lance has tried both and it’s near impossible, resulting in him yanking at his hair in frustration and a couple of sleepless nights. Just when he thinks he might have a handle on some much needed alone time with her, she is pulled off by pressing responsibilities and Lance is left standing there, irritated at their inability to connect, and still, impossibly, guilty.

Two days later, he gets back from his assignment early and he’s determined to snag just five minutes with her. Five minutes. That can’t be asking too much, right? He pings her on her comm, waits an hour for her response, but it’s favorable and despite dreading the conversation, heady relief fills him to the brim.

After a quick shower where he rehearsed the entire thing with her in his head, he heads towards the Atlas’s launch bay to find her. Lance skirts around the fringes of meandering workers, feeling unexpectedly shy when he realizes that half of them are staring in slack-jawed awe. The attention becomes a direct spotlight and he remembers all of those times Team Voltron put on an act to strengthen the coalition in space. Feels more comfortable when he realizes this is the same exact thing.

Most of the workers simply watch him with wide eyes, but a few of them go out of their way to thank and congratulate him for being a paladin. For saving Earth. Lance gives them his best smile - all pearly whites, the dimple in his left cheek, eyes sparkling - and accepts their gratitude with his own. 

He realizes that he really hasn’t spent much time around other people who did not know him, realizes that they see him as someone who he isn’t, not really, at least, not on his own. His successes in battle stem from his teammates, and he makes sure to tell that to some of the mechanics and construction workers who shake his hand and tell him that he’s a hero.

“You ought to let them pay you compliments without giving them away.”

He snaps his head to the right to find Allura leaning up against a bay door, arms crossed over her chest, a smile stretched wide across her face. Her hair is pulled back from her face in its usual bun, the baggy Garrison uniform hanging off her slim frame. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever get used to seeing her in it - it’s extremely weird, if he’s being honest, simply because it doesn’t fit her aesthetic of “gorgeous sparkly space princess” at all. 

“Hey, stranger,” he grins at her, pleased that despite his anxiety over needing to meet with her, that he still feels somewhat calm about it. He excuses himself from a cluster of people near him and jogs over to her. “Wow, do I know you? You look familiar, but I just can’t put my finger on it.”

She rolls her eyes at him, but the smile stays put. “Hello, Lance. What is so urgently pressing on you that you were compelled to beg for five minutes of my time?”

“What, can’t a guy just call up an old friend to say hey?” His stomach flutters with nerves but he swallows them back. She simply raises an eyebrow at him, causing him to sigh. “Can we talk somewhere privately, maybe?”

Her expression shifts into something embarrassed and she quickly straightens from the wall, glancing away from him. He reels at the change in her demeanor, but remains silent as she purses her lips. “Follow me.”

Allura leads him into to the belly of the ship, and the silence between them feels thin and crinkly. Uncomfortable. Like white noise in a dark room. She quickly finds a hallway that is deserted. Sounds of people milling about, checking out the giant vessel and tending to the repairs echo against the metallic walls and ceilings.

Lance curses the fact that there isn’t anything here to distract himself with, so he leans his back against a wall, takes a deep breath and looks across the space at Allura.

“You know.” His voice loud enough to hang unsolicited in the air between them. “The mice...they told you, didn’t they.” It’s not a question. It’s a statement. He expected to feel somewhat embarrassed, but he doesn’t. Everything is very factual. Light and dark. Black and white.

She appears to let out a sigh, but he only sees it in the movement of her shoulders. “Yes,” she says softly.

His heart stutters with anxiety, but he keeps his cool. “Sweet,” he says, but his voice has strain in it this time. “How long?”

“Not long after Oriande,” she tells him. “I’m...sorry.” She scratches at her cheek, avoids his gaze.

Despite the awkward fog in the air, he laughs, crossing his arms over his chest and tilting his head back to touch the wall. “Don’t apologize, Princess. Really. Things were different then.”

She takes a deep breath. “I thought about it,” she says, and he goes very still. “After Lotor...While we were coming to Earth, once we got here, I thought about it. Thought about you.” Her words are so kind, but they don’t do anything to his heart. He considers that she had known for months about his genuine crush, his almost-more-than-a-crush crush, and she still didn’t pick him first. Not that she had been obligated to, of course, but it is the truth.

“I’m sorry if it made you feel pressured at all,” he tells her, glancing back down to find her watching him, gauging his reaction. “What Lotor did royally sucked. The way he manipulated all of us aside, the one he really hurt was you. I know you need time to heal from that, so...a-and you deserve so much more than anything I can give you, Allura, you deserve -.”

“I know,” she replies, smiling kindly. “I might have thought, maybe. Between you and me,  _ maybe _ . But…” she gives him a gentle look, and he remembers why he had liked her so much. The care and affection in her voice is overwhelming. “You deserve more than a maybe.”

He nearly sags in relief against the wall, all of the anxious tension leaving him in one fell swoop. This whole conversation is going a lot smoother than he anticipated, and he’s so happy that they’re on the same page, he could cry. Lance pushes away from the wall and takes two long steps across the space between them to wrap her in a hug.

She laughs softly, but returns the hug fiercely. “You’ve always been there for me, Lance. I’m glad that you’re...you seem happier these days.”

He pulls back with a grin. “Well, yeah. You know how homesick I was. It’s good to be back.” It was all he could talk about some days in the castle. It wasn’t a secret. Coran and Allura often were the best people to talk to about it, just because they could relate on a deep, personal level.

Her arms slide away from him and she props her hands on her hips. “It’s more than that,” she tells him, studying his expression intensely with her blue eyes. “You’re more self-assured, you’re comfortable and you’re confident. And much, much happier than I’ve seen you in a long time. It suits you.”

To his horror, he blushes, a hot wash of blood crawling up his neck and blooming in his cheeks like rosebuds. Not because of her praise, but because  _ self-assured _ and  _ comfortable  _ and  _ confident _ are three new things he associates very strongly with one Keith Kogane. Oh for Christ’s sake, he needs to  _ get a grip _ .

“How curious,” Allura murmurs, but she has a knowing look on her face, a smirk, as though she can read his thoughts. 

“Whatever you’re thinking,” Lance rasps out, taking a step away from her, “it’s probably not true.”

“You aren’t exactly subtle,” she tells him with an airy little laugh. “I watched how quickly you changed when he came back. For a while, it just seemed like you were just trying to match him stride, for stride, like you used to. But...” She peers up at him, blinks slowly. “I’ve seen how you respond to him. How you look at him. It’s more than that, isn’t it?”

Lance, throat dry, meets her gaze stubbornly, protective of his own thoughts and feelings because they belong to him, and to Keith maybe, someday. “Keith is my best friend, Allura. That’s all.”

She doesn’t look convinced, but thank every star in heaven that she is capable of reading a mood. She steps away and nods, but her expression gentles out again. “You make a great team together.”

“I’ll allow that one.” He grins at her, the tips of his ears still burning hot. It’s kind of silly that the reaffirmation of his own thoughts said out loud by someone else could make his heart leap in his chest like that, but it does. 

She grins back, pats his arm, and then begins making her way back down the hall. “I have to get back to work now, Lance, but we’ll catch up again, soon.”

“Wait.” He catches her wrist before she is out of his reach, forcing her to stop. “Thank you. For everything. And, you know, for making time to talk to me.”

She smiles as his hand slips away. “It’s absolutely my pleasure, Lance.” She winks at him and he lets out a shaky breath of relief once she is gone, leaning back against the cool wall. He smiles to himself, reveling in the weightlessness that comes after an honest conversation. 

The world, so eerie and so unsteady in the aftermath of the last battle nearly a month ago now, begins to right itself. His thoughts aren’t such a mess, and he can pick between them, separating them into their own boxes. He doesn’t know what will happen in the future, but at least he has his family, whole and safe, and he has his team, constant and reliable.

::

The next several weeks are a blur. Lance spends most of his time in his lion, clearing wreckage left behind by the Galra and collecting left behind tech with not only Keith, but the rest of the team as well. It’s slow going, but maybe that’s a good thing, because for the first time in months they can all talk. Just Talk.

Keith is the quietest of the bunch, which is pretty normal but it’s driving Lance up the wall because he wants to listen to him the most. He’d ask outright, but if Allura is already suspecting something, then he definitely doesn’t want Pidge to catch on. There is so much he doesn’t know about Keith’s years away from the team, and he wants to understand every little thing about him. Wants to know how he became so sure of himself, wants to know how his mother had healed the scars she’d left in him, wants to know if living with the Blade was as lonely as Lance imagines it was.

About two months pass with the same routine, and slowly, the Garrison is nearly restored to its former glory, the relief efforts slowly leeching more and more across the desert, and news of restoration across the most ravaged parts of the world start coming back. Earth is rebuilding steadily, quickly, especially as members of the Voltron Coalition begin showing up to help.

Every day, there is less and less pressing work to do, and Lance finds himself with more free time than before. It gets to the point where there’s virtually no work left that requires lions, and the paladins are all considered too high-profile to be spending long days in the streets. They’re all collectively assigned to less and less work, and soon, their days feel like a lot of just waiting. 

::

Lance startles, consumed in a flash of bright light, before he’s suddenly standing in one of the Garrison hangars with ground level vehicles parked in tidy rows. He jerks his hand away when a warm tongue laps at his fingers which are dangling by his side. He furrows his eyebrows down at Kosmo, who looks up at him with all the puppy-dog innocence you absolutely would not expect from a massive space wolf of unknown origins.

“What are you looking at, trouble?” Lance asks teasingly, wiping a sheen of perspiration from his forehead.

Kosmo’s tongue lolls out of his mouth as he sits, his tail thumping twice against the floor.

Lance sighs and looks up to see Keith is standing there wearing casual clothes, sleeves rolled up, looking way too good. Like, way,  _ way _ too good. The hell. Lance does his best to keep his eyes from wandering, fixing an almost glare on the black paladin’s face. Keith raises an eyebrow at him silently and then his gaze slips down to his wolf.

“Good boy,” he says and then looks back up to Lance with a smirk that is far too self-satisfied.

Lance sighs with exasperation. “Keith, if you really wanted to talk to me, you could just, I don’t know, ping me on my comm instead of sending your dog to play fetch.” 

Keith leans back against what looks like an extremely old model of a hoverbike. “I tried. You weren’t answering.” He seems to finally notice the red sword Lance’s hand. “What is  _ that _ ?”

Lance holds up his bayard with a grin, snagging the hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat dripping down his chin. His body still vibrates with the adrenaline rush he gets during training, but the sweat might be more of a product from the strange humidity in the air, blowing in through the open hangar doors. “Pretty cool, right? I think having a bayard that turns into a sniper rifle and a 10,000 year old Altean broadsword officially makes me cooler than you. Try not to cry.”

Keith’s eyes widen as he looks from the sword, to Lance’s face, and back again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Lance shrugs. “I haven’t had to use it in battle, I guess. Wanna try it out?” He grins and holds the bayard out for Keith to take, who eagerly lets the weapon slide into his hand. 

Lance stands back as Keith gives it a few slashes through the air and then looks down at it, turning it in his hand to feel the weight, thoroughly impressed. “This is so cool. It’s Altean, huh? Are you any good with it?” Keith asks, and the words could be rude, but that’s not what he means and Lance knows it. He looks up at Lance, eyes glittering so prettily with interest that Lance can’t stop the violent seizing of his heart in his chest.

Lance laughs and takes the bayard back. It transforms to its standard form and he tucks one of the ends into the waistband of his pants at his back, shifting his weight as he crosses his arms over his chest. “Your standards of good and my standards of good are probably different, but I’ve been practicing in all our down time, so you better watch out, hot shot.”

Keith reaches out to pet Kosmo’s head as his wolf trots to his side and practically sits on his feet. “I can help, if you want.”

Lance can feel his face getting hot. “No obligations, man. I’m figuring things out okay.”

Keith looks up at him and kind of smiles. “Lance, I’m asking because I want to help.”

_ Uhhhh, maybe I don’t want to look stupid in front of you? _ He wants to impress Keith, not make a total fool out of himself and like. He isn’t terrible with the sword, but he’s definitely no Keith. Plus, seeing normal Keith on a semi-regular basis is already hard on his heart. Seeing sweat-drenched, sword-wielding Keith in between all of that? Yeah, maybe if he has a death wish. 

Lance smothers his embarrassment to the best of his abilities and shugs nonchalantly. “I’ll, uh, sure. That would- that would be cool.” He clears his throat, attempts to bring the conversation back around. “Why did you bring me here? Missed me, or somethin’?” He gives Keith a ten-thousand watt smile and props his hands back on his hips.

Keith leans back against the hoverbike behind him, absently scratching Kosmo behind the ear. “I see you almost every day.”

Lance covers his heart with his hand and raises his other palm into the air. “It’s alright, Keith, your secret is safe with me.”

“I can’t miss you if you’re always around.”

“That’s not true.” Lance means it as a joke, but there’s weight in his words that slip through his filter. Keith gives him a curious look, not confused, but calculated and Lance’s skin begins to feel hot again. “W-Well, you know, in general I mean! I still miss my mom sometimes even when we’re in the same room, s-so. Yeah.”

Keith barks a laugh unexpectedly, covering his mouth with one gloved hand, tossing his head back. He’s laughing at Lance’s expense, but Lance honestly can’t bring himself to care. Keith’s laughs are rare and the sound of them is like a cool drink of water on a really hot day. He doesn’t mind doing or saying stupid shit to make Keith laugh like that. Because like, not only does it sound good, but it feels good, too. It’s a good look on him.

Kosmo’s tail wags at Keith’s laughter, and nudges his dangling hand as if to ask for more pets, which he obliges, turning his mirth-filled gaze back on Lance, all crinkled and sparkly and adorable. “Do you miss me, right now?” he asks, grinning.

And whoa.  _ Whoa. _

Lance’s eyebrows shoot up so high he wonders if they disappear into his hairline. “Oh, you’re teasing me now, are you? Is that a thing you’re doing? Fancy. Didn’t know you had it in you.”

Keith merely shrugs, unable to hide his smile. “I’ve learned from the best.”

What the fuck. That was so cute? “Are you talking about  _ me _ ?” Lance asks, all melodramatics and wild hands, even though he knows the answer already. Like anyone else actually teases Keith. No, that’s Lance and Lance alone. It’s almost always been that way, and Lance likes to think that’s how it’s always going to be. He likes to think that Keith takes to his teasing in a way that he wouldn’t accept from anyone else. “Aww, Keith, do you really think I’m the best?”

“Hmm.” Keith’s expression turns warm, a total oxymoron if Lance ever saw one, as he drops his gaze to his wolf and gives Kosmo a firm pat on his head. “Go home,” he says.

Kosmo leans his head into Keith’s hand and then, in a bright flash of light, disappears entirely. The sky outside the hangar is overcast, kind of dark, and despite the humidity, a cool breeze blows in. There are some other people in the hangar, so far away that the sounds of their footsteps are faint and hardly registered. Lance is too busy thinking about how utterly alone he and Keith are, and that Keith still hasn’t said why he asked Kosmo to bring him here.

Keith hums his approval, breaking the silence between them. He turns his eyes back to Lance and then pats the hoverbike he’s leaning against. “You wanna get out of here?”

Lance feels like the floor just disappeared beneath him, feels like every planet and every galaxy in the universe has just shuddered to an absolute and dizzying stop. “W-What?”

Keith’s ease seems to slowly evaporate, uncertainty leaking into him. He crosses his arms over his chest and averts his gaze and if Lance could stop his head from spinning for two seconds, he might notice that Keith is two seconds from dropping the whole thing. “What do you mean, what? You heard me.” His tone is gruff, embarrassed.

Lance shakes his head, desperately trying to pull himself out of his astonishment. “Sorry, sorry, I just... _ what _ ?”

Keith sighs with exasperation and turns a stony look on him. “I had you come here because I want to talk to you about some stuff, but I’m sick of being stuck inside this shitty compound where I’m surrounded by shitty memories so do you wanna get out of here or not?”

Lance’s heart is pounding harder than probably ever in his life and he can hardly hear over the sound of blood rushing in his ears, but he somehow finds enough composure to speak, licking his lips. “Won’t we get in trouble?”

Keith snorts. “You afraid of breaking a few rules? What are they gonna do?”

Lance nods, his hands fluttering uselessly in front of him. “Nothing, I guess.”

“It’s not like we’re ditching work or something.” Keith sighs again and looks away. “Lance, please, I need you to just give me a yes or no.”

This behavior isn’t necessarily all that weird but Keith’s insecurity about it is intriguing in exactly the same way that it is endearing. Lance wishes he had more mental capacity to think about it but he’s literally trying not to keel over dead on the spot right now. “S-Sure. Yeah. Let’s go.”

Some of the tension leaves Keith. He turns on his heel and climbs onto the bike and Lance tries not to be mesmerized by how easily Keith settles onto it. He’s reminded painfully of the night they rescued Shiro. Keith had a hoverbike then, and he’d driven it with the five of them loaded onto it like an absolute madman. The wind tore through his hair and he had the audacity to smirk, enjoying the high-speed chase being given by the Garrison.

Lance smiles, feeling his pulse begin to settle. He tucks his bayard in closer to him and walks towards the vehicle. “Man, this takes me back. You still know how to drive one of these things?”

Keith rolls his eyes. “I guess we’ll find out.”

“That’s reassuring.” Lance’s heart thuds in his throat as he steps up and swings himself onto the bike behind Keith, trying very hard not to touch him. All of the nerves in his body feel bright, like floodlights on a starless night, his fingers trembling as he settles into the small space between Keith’s back and the tail of the bike. 

It’s just Keith, he tells himself. 

But god, that’s the problem, isn’t it? This is as close as he’s ever been to Keith in such a quiet moment. There’s no battle smoke in his hair or scratches on their armor. No bruises or drawn weapons or desperate voices over the comm link or the adrenaline high of maybe, possibly, dying. 

This time, Lance can smell his soap. It’s clean and generic, just some off-brand that the Garrison buys in bulk and keeps in stock but it still messes with Lance’s head. Still smells better than any other soap-scent he’s ever smelled in his life. He can feel the warmth coming off Keith’s body, like sand on a summer day, absolutely soaked with heat, dangerously hot to the touch.

He can see the shape of his shoulder blades through the dark shirt that he’s wearing, strong and defined, and steady. Lance has always associated the sight of Keith’s turned back as him running away again, and he’d hated it. He had to watch Keith leave over and over again, and every time it was harder to swallow until he finally stayed away. It was why, when he left to save Acxa, Lance had been so scared. He’d watched the same thing happen too many times, watched Keith’s back as he disappeared _ too many times _ .

But Keith’s shoulders right now are steady and close. The line of them strong and comforting, as though the mere shape and nearness of them are enough to assure Lance. Keith, he reminds himself, came back with Acxa and he is here now, so close that Lance can nearly hear his breaths. He’s not going anywhere. At least, not without the team. Not without Lance.

There is the light breeze coming in off the dry, scorched desert, smelling like damp heat and sun-baked dirt. Keith’s hair ruffles a bit in the wind, the edges of him softened by the unusual grayness of the day. He nearly holds his breath, afraid if he gets any closer that Keith might be able to feel his heartbeat vibrating in the air. The tension that always seems to live in their interactions grows into an unbearably thick cloud overhead.

“Lance,” Keith says, his voice a warm rumble that Lance almost feels through the space between them more than he hears it. “Relax.”

Lance lets out a shaky sigh. “Relax? I’m relaxed. I’m so relaxed I’ve basically reached nirvana back here. Just focus on driving, Kogane, and remember there’s precious cargo on board.” 

“Yeah? Well, the precious cargo is going to go flying off the second I switch this thing into gear if he doesn’t hold on.” He tosses a look over his shoulder that absolutely should not make Lance’s knees feel this weak. That is  _ not _ fair.

Lance wraps his arms loosely around Keith’s waist and tries very hard not to think about it at all. “Fine. Happy?”

In response, Keith faces front again and turns the ignition, the engine whirring to life. The bike shoots forward out of the hangar, streaking out into the desert like a shooting star. Lance lets out a yelp that gets torn away from him in the rush of wind, tightening his hold on the boy in front of him. 

“You did that on purpose, you asshole!” he yells, but he’s laughing, enjoying the way the wind whips violently through his hair. It feels like a memory, but there isn’t one particular instance he remembers other than a general echo of joy

Keith doesn’t respond. Lance thinks that he might be smiling.

::

They end up where everything began. 

The cavern opening is dark, but the gray filtered sunlight allows for the barest peek of lion carvings on the walls. The sight of it nearly steals Lance’s breath, bringing him back to the day they found Blue with so much blinding clarity the memories almost hurt. It seems like a lifetime ago, that they were here.

Keith cuts the engine and the hoverbike slowly rests on the ground and goes dark. He straightens from where he had been leaning over the handles and his entire back presses into Lance’s chest. After riding for half an hour together, it hardly seems like it should affect him, but Lance still finds himself drowning in jitters, hot and nervous, and he peels himself away, sliding up to sit on the tail, feet perched on the wings, elbows rested on his knees.

“It looks the same,” Keith murmurs.

“Yeah,” Lance agrees quietly. It does seem sort of crazy that this place hadn’t been hurt at all by the effects of the Galra when it had been such an important part of their lives. A piece of Earth left untouched. If he closes his eyes, smells the red, red dirt of the desert, he can almost pretend like he was here yesterday. Blue reaching out to Keith -  _ crazy energy that he’d been chasing for a year _ , Lance remembers - the rest of them following instinct and Hunk’s brain. Blue, then, calling to him. To Lance. 

Overhead, the sky mumbles. The clouds churn, dark and heavy, and he barely has time to look up with incredulity before it cracks open and rain is thundering down around them. Relief, a brief wave of the memory of homesickness giving way to sweet, potent relief.

The rain batters against him relentlessly, as though it knew how much Lance had missed it, soaking him to the bone within seconds. Joy bubbles in his chest and its light, its airy, its carbonated, and then its pushing out of his mouth in big swooping laughter that echos against the cliff walls. He laughs until his stomach aches, lost in the thunder; tilts his head back, eyes closed, and grins into the downpour, stretching his arms out to catch and feel as much of the water as possible.

He remembers, then, that he isn’t alone. So caught up in the moment, he’d forgotten that Keith was there, too. Lance straightens again, cupping his hands around his eyes, prepared to squint through the rain to find him, thinking that he probably ran for the cave like any other sane person. His breath leaves him, punched from his chest violently, when he finds Keith standing right next to the bike.

He’s smiling, soaked, face lifted, palms up. The pink scar on Keith’s face stands out in stark contrast to his pale skin, his dark hair, and Lance wants to touch it. Wants to run his finger over the raised ridge of it, damp with rain, glistening. Wants to press his mouth over it in a soft flutter of kisses, slow and tender. Wants to ask about it. Wants to push the hair back from Keith’s face so that there is nothing left to hide behind. Lance swallows the desire back, clenching his hands into fists.

“Didn’t know you liked the rain,” he says loudly so that Keith can hear him over the sound of the water drumming against the hoverbike.

Keith lowers his face, opens his eyes, dark as midnight. “I don’t, much,” he says, “but it looked like you were enjoying it, so.” He shrugs one shoulder. Lance doesn’t know what that means, too distracted by the relaxed curve of Keith’s eyebrows, the tilt of his wet mouth, and he doesn’t have time to ask before Keith is jabbing his thumb over his shoulder at the cave. A streak of lightning cuts through the sky, the following boom splitting the air explosively, the sound of it rolling across the desert like a bowling ball. “Let’s wait it out.”

Lance nods and slides off the back of the hoverbike, following Keith as he jogs into the cavern. He savors the feeling of the rain on his skin and he’s grinning again once they’re both inside, drying off as best they can. There is a teasing comment on the tip of his tongue, prepared to compare Keith to a drowned cat, but Keith is standing there, wringing water out of his shirt, sweeping his wet hair aside, and Lance’s voice dies in his throat.

“Looks like it might rain for a while,” Keith says absently, darting a look out through the gray sheet of water falling over the mouth of the cave. 

Lance takes a deep breath to find his composure and turns to look at it, too. “Yeah.” His brain decides that it’s a convenient time to remember that Keith had wanted to speak with him alone about something. “Hey, Keith?”

“Hmm?” 

Lance looks back to find him leaning against cavern wall, just below a carving of a lion. “Why do you hate the Garrison so much?”

Keith glances at him with a half-smile. “I don’t hate it,” he says, watching Lance as he draws closer and stops a few feet away from him. “I’d just rather be elsewhere.”

“You called it shitty.” 

“Well, they did lie about Shiro. And kicked me out after I tried to find what they were hiding about Shiro. Things just didn’t work out for me there.” He shrugs. “Plus, all of the kids hated me.”

Something nameless swells up inside of Lance, but it’s hot and insistent. “Not all of them.”

Keith scoffs playfully, a droplet of water running over the curve of his cheek from his wet hair. “Lance, please. You literally declared me your rival.”

Lance hesitates, but if he wants to understand Keith more, wants him to open up without any insecurities, then Lance is going to have to do the same. No matter how logical the explanation sounds in his head, the fact of the matter is that he’s about to admit to something that he’d never voiced aloud to anyone, not even himself. His mouth feels dry, but he pushes on, determined to be honest. “I was jealous of you.”

Keith’s eyes widen, just barely, just enough to give away that he is surprised. “Jealous?”

Lance reaches up to scratch at the back of his neck. “Yeah...not too proud of it, I’ll admit, haha.” He offers up a sheepish grin, which earns him a look of amusement. Lance clears his throat, willing away the rising blush as he glances down to his lap. “It’s just...you...Keith, you were so amazing? So good at everything, so talented, so cool, it was hardly fair. You’d have been jealous, too. I wanted to be your rival so that you’d at least  _ acknowledge _ -” he cuts off abruptly. That’s too much. Too much. 

“I never wanted to be your rival,” Keith tells him after he realizes that Lance isn’t going to offer up any more information.

Lance laughs. “I know. Sorry.”

Keith shakes his head, the expression on his face gentle. “It’s okay. Fighting with you in space...it was fun.” He pauses. “Most of the time.”

Lightning forks through the sky again, and the thunder shakes the ground. 

A breath, a sigh, but warmth. “I like being your friend, Keith.” Lance finds himself staring at Keith, feels the lightning in the air like a tangible thing, an undercurrent of electricity making his skin feel bright and stretched and raw. 

Keith stares back unabashed, his eyelashes sorta wet, hair beginning to curl at the ends from the humidity. He rubs his thumb and forefinger together absently as his expression becomes pinched the way it does when he’s experiencing emotional constipation. Lance’s heart thuds like a bass drum.

“I wanted to talk to you about why I left the team,” Keith says, his voice sounding too soft in the enclosed space, the gray almost-darkness, the slap of rainwater nearly drowning him out. There is something else hidden there in his tone, his scowl softening, crossing his legs in front of him, too, more open, even with his shoulders still hunched to his ears.

Lance hesitates warily. Keith had left because he didn’t want to lead the team. He’d always felt better off alone, hadn’t he? Not that he didn’t love the team in his own way, but the Blade of Marmora allowed Keith to act quick and complete missions in ways that Voltron could not. They were about stealth and constant action - behind the scenes - rather than Voltron’s tendency to over-hash a plan and then burst in, guns a-blazin’. 

Lance had missed him to the point of pain and his leaving felt like a personal offense. Like he’d been running away  _ from _ something more than he’d been running _ to _ something. And that’s why Lance has never been able to let it go. He’d expected more from Keith, had known all along that Keith possessed the ability to be the person he is now. Had seen that potential, had  _ felt _ it in his bones, in his breath. He knows that Keith had to find out for himself, but that doesn’t mean that the whole year Lance had to learn how to exist without him didn’t make him just a little bitter. 

“Okay,” Lance replies slowly, voice guarded. He’s glad that the humidity is cloying enough that the air around them has not turned cold, even with their wet clothes. Feeling the hot press of the damp fabric against his skin is almost a distraction to retreat to.

Keith nods and Lance expects him to look away, but he maintains eye contact, visibly taking a deep, soundless breath. “Part of it was because of Shiro,” he starts off, low and slow, tasting his words before letting them leave his mouth. “I...Shiro was--”

“Dude, if you’re gonna just word vomit things I already know, I don’t think I need to--”

“Lance.” Keith cuts him off, gaze dark, expression determined. “It’s my turn to talk.”

Much to Lance’s dismay, a thrill rocks through him at Keith’s words, so firm and absolute, leaving no room to be dissuaded. Almost a command, but almost...intimate. “R-Right. Okay. Yeah,” Lance relents, blood hot, sweeping his arm in a ‘go ahead’ gesture, remembering at once the hundreds of times that all he wanted was to hear Keith talk about what was going on in his head. “You were saying?”

Keith nods once, and then continues. “I felt that Shiro was a better leader than me, and it was true. We all knew it, but I....I could have stayed. I could have tried to learn, and I know Shiro would have helped me. I know  _ you _ would have helped me, but I was also presented with the chance to find out what it meant that I was half-Galra. Learning about my heritage felt like something I needed to explore. I couldn’t do that with the team. I had to figure it out on my own.” He nods again, mostly to himself. “It led me to my mom.”

Lance nods, too, but his throat feels sore. He didn’t think that this would be so hard to hear. Kind of wishes that they didn’t have to talk about this, hopes that he’s almost done. “You don’t have to explain, man, I get it.”

Keith shakes his head slowly, a smile ghosting across his lips, eyes unreadable. “You don’t.”

“Well, I mean, yeah, I wasn’t the one who found out that I was half-Galra but--”

“No, Lance. I mean that’s not the whole story.”

Lance pauses at the strange new sound of Keiths’ voice. Vulnerability? “What do you mean, then?”

“Do you remember...after Shiro came back...do you remember when you came to talk to me about it?” Thunder rattles the ground again, but the sound of the rain begins to finally lessen from  _ violent downpour _ to  _ heavy deluge _ .

Lance can hear his own breath loud in his ears for a moment before everything fades, except for Keith, who burns so brightly in the soft shadows of the late afternoon thunderstorm that it almost hurts to look at him. “Yes.”

“You said you’d step down, for Allura to keep Blue. For me to have Red.”

_ No. _ His tongue is like wet clay in his mouth. His heart aches and slows, the blood in his veins blistering. “Keith, what are you saying.” It’s a statement. There’s no way he can be saying what Lance thinks he’s saying. Irrational fear is bitter and awful on his tongue, the loneliness from Keith’s absence gaping in him like a yawn. He stares hard at Keith’s face, afraid that if he looks anywhere else, his thoughts will make him dizzy.

“You’re not stupid, Lance.”

Lance swallows.

“I knew how much being on the team meant to you. I knew that they’d fall apart without you, the same way I knew that you guys would be okay without me--”

“That’s not true.”

Keith stops short at Lance’s outburst, at the tremble in his voice, the bitterness and the anger and the disbelief. His eyes grow wide, pinning Lance with confusion and surprise, but Lance doesn’t relent this time, doesn’t back down. His hands shake as he leans forward. “We functioned fine as a team without you, sure, whatever,” Lance says, voice hard, “but we were not okay.  _ I _ was not okay.”

The truth, finally, set free. Placed before them. The very reason for the tension that seems to hang over them any time they talk for more than five minutes. Keith doesn’t flinch away from that. He seems to take it, accept it, with much more calm than he should have. It almost makes Lance angrier.

“Please,” Lance says, voice cracking. “Please tell me you didn’t leave because of me.”

A muscle in Keith’s jaw jumps. “I had to.”

Lance takes a step closer, hands in fists at his sides. Everything he thought he knew about Keith starts to crumble, turning to ash. “You didn’t. You really, really didn’t.”

Keith narrows his eyes. “I couldn’t let you give up the one thing in space that made you happy.”

“You left,” Lance bites out, shoving at Keith’s shoulder. “The black lion chose you and _ I chose you _ and you  _ left _ . I didn’t ask for you to protect me.”

“I had to,” Keith repeats, back against the wall, softening. Again, vulnerability. Something in Lance’s heart breaks and his anger is suddenly gone, sapped away by the wide, searching look in Keith’s eyes. “I’m not sorry I did it, Lance.”

He feels the tears coming. His eyes sting and he buries his face in his hands so that Keith won’t see. “Well, I am,” he mutters. “You’re such an asshole.” He scrubs at his face harshly and then pulls his hands away again. He meets Keith’s open expression with one of his own. “I missed you.”

Keith looks down and reaches out, settling the tips of his first two fingers ever so lightly on the back of Lance’s wrist. Every time before, Keith has only initiated physical contact with him out of necessity, but this...Keith touches him now because he wants to. 

“I won’t leave again,” he promises quietly, slowly pressing his thumb to the inside of Lance’s wrist. Slowly, he lifts his gaze, all fire and burning sincerity, and Lance feels his throat become sore again, thick with unshed tears. 

“I won’t let you,” he says, swallowing back the urge to cry.

Keith gives him a little smile and clears his throat, but his hand remains, lightly touching, the barest of pressure on Lance’s pulse. “Did things...ever work out with Allura?” he asks quietly, eyes searching Lance’s expression.

The question takes him so off guard that he finds himself chuckling under his breath, Keith’s tact clumsy but thoughtful. “No,” he says simply. 

Keith nods. “I know you liked her a lot. I’m sorry.” He doesn’t really sound sorry at all.

Lance shakes his head, turning his wrist over so that the inside is exposed to Keith now, and he watches as Keith’s thumb passes gently over his pulse again. “I’m not sorry. We weren’t right for each other.”

Another rumble of thunder, but distant now. He is suddenly aware again of their surroundings. The rain still falls, but it’s lighter now, the dark clouds becoming brighter as the storm passes. Keith hums vaguely, still watching Lance with his midnight eyes, thumb brushing softly, feeling the way Lance’s blood sings at the contact.

“No,” he agrees. “You weren’t.”

Lance’s breath shudders in his chest. He brings his free hand up to brush a damp lock of hair from Keith’s cheek and then runs his own thumb along the clean ridge of his scar with a feather-light touch. The way he always wanted to. Keith tenses, as if to pull away, but their eyes lock and he doesn’t move.

“You never...explained how this happened,” Lance murmurs.

Keith’s thumb stills on his wrist and he’s quiet for a long time. It feels like forever, even though it can’t have been more than a minute. Lance purses his lips, his fingers brushing Keith’s sharp jawline before falling away. “Sorry, if you don’t want to talk about it--”

“No,” Keith says immediately. “No, I do. It’s just...” He looks down at Lance’s wrist. “When I went to rescue Shiro - or not-Shiro, I guess - he fought back against me hard. I didn’t want to hurt him; I was terrified of hurting him. Shiro has done so much for me and I couldn’t just give up on him, after everything.” He swallows. “He had me pinned and he burned me with his arm. I barely got away. It happened so fast; I forget I have a scar.”

Lance frowns. “I’m sorry you had to do that all on your own.” Keith’s voice is unbothered, but the long moment of silence before speaking tells Lance everything he needs to know. He wonders if he ever talked to Shiro about it, but he doubts it. Shiro endured so much, and the clone wasn’t him. He wouldn’t be surprised if Keith hasn’t spoken about this aloud at all, yet.

Keith’s thumb presses against the softest part of his wrist. “It all worked out in the end.”

“Still, it must have been hard.” Lance’s voice is soft as a down pillow. “You can talk to me about these things, Keith.”

Keith nods. “I know. Thanks, Lance.” He smiles slightly. “I’m tired of talking. Do you mind if we just…?”

Lance grins. “Sure. Looks like the rain will be over soon anyway.”

Keith releases Lance’s wrist slowly and then they sit side by side with their backs to the cavern wall. They watch the rain in silence for a while, and Lance isn’t sure who moves first, but eventually they are sitting so close that they are pressed together from hip to shoulder. The ground isn’t very comfortable, and there’s a rock digging into his spine, but there’s literally no place in the entire universe that he would rather be right now. 

He can feel how warm Keith is through their damp clothes, and his heart stutters and altogether stops when Keith sighs softly and says, “I missed you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know the ending is kind of sudden but i legitimately could not think of anything else to say. I will probably post a deleted scene from this fic on my tumblr (bittenred) if you are interested in reading that! (its a scene where keith finds out that lance died but i just could not for the life of me make it fit in this fic so. deleted scene it is.)
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading! <3
> 
> Edit: you can read the extra scene here (http://bittenred.tumblr.com/post/177738220534/here-is-a-deleted-scene-from-the-last-kl-fic-i)


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